From these same Kumi-cho, it appears that no one could leave his village even for a single night, without permission,--or take service elsewhere, or marry in another province, or settle in another place. Punishments were severe,--a terrible flogging being the common mode of chastisement by the higher authority.... To-day, there are no such punishments; and, legally, a man can go where he pleases. But as a matter of fact he can nowhere do as he pleases; for individual liberty is still largely restricted by the survival of communal sentiment and old-fashioned custom. In any country community it would be unwise to proclaim such a doctrine as that [95] a man has the right to employ his leisure and his means as he may think proper. No man's time or money or effort can be considered exclusively his own,--nor even the body that his ghost inhabits. His right to live in the community rests solely upon his willingness to serve the community; and whoever may need his help or sympathy has the privilege of demanding it. That "a man's house is his castle" cannot be asserted in Japan--except in the case of some high potentate. No ordinary person can shut his door to lock out the rest of the world. Everybody's house must be open to visitors: to close its gates by day would be regarded as an insult to the community,--sickness affording no excuse. Only persons in very great authority have the right of making themselves inaccessible. And to displease the community in which one lives,--especially if the community be a rural one,--is a serious matter. When a community is displeased, if acts as an individual. It may consist of five hundred, a thousand, or several thousand persons; but the thinking of all is the thinking of one. By a single serious mistake a man may find himself suddenly placed in solitary opposition to the common will,--isolated, and most effectively ostracized. The silence and the softness of the hostility only render it all the more alarming. This is the ordinary form of punishment for a grave offence against custom: violence is rare, and when resorted to is intended (except in [96] some extraordinary cases presently to be noticed) as a mere correction, the punishment of a blunder. In certain rough communities, blunders endangering life are immediately punished by physical chastisement,--not in anger, but on traditional principle. Once I witnessed at a fishing-settlement, a chastisement of this kind. Men were killing tunny in the surf; the work was bloody and dangerous; and in the midst of the excitement, one of the fishermen struck his killing-spike into the head of a boy. Everybody knew that it was a pure accident; but accidents involving danger to life are rudely dealt with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked senseless by the men nearest him,--then dragged out of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover himself as best he might. No word was said about the matter; and the killing went on as before.